The Three-Eyed White Wolf, the Beast Lord of the Alpine Gerbil Woods, came out of its lair and was surprised to see so many of its subordinates dead at the hands of just one human.
Moreover, it saw the Golden Ape flying towards it with a quick speed.
The third eye on the White Wolf's forehead glowed, and suddenly, the Golden Ape stopped just before it hit the White Wolf and was slowly lowered towards the ground.
The beasts had barely blinked their eyes when they suddenly saw Azaroth standing on the other side of the Golden Ape, a black lightning spear in his hand that was going past the Golden Ape's robust body, targeting the White Wolf's Third Eye on the other side.
However, surprisingly enough, the black lightning spear was annihilated just before it could touch the White Wolf's Third Eye.
Azaroth was slightly surprised by this, but soon enough, he regained his calm. He should have expected this… This was a Beast Lord, after all.
However, to think that he couldn't even scratch this Beast Lord even after going in his Demonic Form was slightly scary.
"Why have you trespassed into my territory, human?" The White Wolf asked with a calm voice.
"What use is talking when you are so intent on killing me?" Azaroth spoke with a dark chuckle as he replied to this White Wolf.
The two normal eyes of the White Wolf shone with a blue light and threw Azaroth far away.
Azaroth maintained his balance, and his legs touched the ground.
He looked around and observed his surroundings. The beasts who had been scared of him earlier were now blocking all paths of his retreat.
"I am talking because I now understand that you are a powerful thing. Even if I personally fight you, you will still be able to kill more of my subordinates. That would be quite troublesome for me." The White Wolf stared at Azaroth with a calm gaze.
The White Wolf didn't say that Azaroth was a powerful human but a thing. It meant to say that it didn't think that Azaroth was a human or a demon but something else entirely.
Azaroth replied soon enough, "My reason for coming here is simple enough. I need a few herbs from here."
"However, it appears that I have encountered something quite surprising here. You have laid a Spiritual Gathering Array here…" Azaroth spoke while pointing at the cave.
"Were you planning to break through to the Beast King level by absorbing the dense energy from the precious herbs using the Astral Ardor Gathering Array? No, even you should realize that it would be impossible for you to elevate yourself to the Beast King level that way. However, a better question would be… How can a beast like you construct a complex array formation like this?"
Azaroth sneered at the Beast Lord as he asked that question.
The White Wolf seemed to react slightly to the word Beast with a dangerous look in its eyes. But the White Wolf calmed down soon enough.
"Don't provoke me any further. The result won't be pretty for you." The White Wolf warned Azaroth.
"Don't play these word games with me then. If I get frustrated enough, I might as well end the Beast Raid before it even begins." Azaroth declared with a confident tone.
"Now speak, what do you want from me?" Azaroth asked as his eyes studied this White Wolf.
The White Wolf let out a breath and spoke, "It's not me who wants something from you. It's someone else. Follow me."
The White Wolf spoke as it turned its head towards the cave.
Azaroth frowned slightly.
He began thinking 'That cave… A lot of Heavenly Energy is condensed in it. My physique will definitely benefit if I absorb that energy. More importantly, just why did someone construct an Astral Ardor Gathering Array here. Absorbing the Heavenly Energy from the herbs would only be helpful to a certain extent. After that, it's merely wasting energy.'
Suddenly, another possibility emerged within his head 'Someone may be healing his injuries using this Array. That would make a lot of sense. However, why would the Beasts allow this person to live here? Just what has he promised them?'
"Very well, let's go," Azaroth spoke with a slow voice as he pulled out two pellets and ate them.
One of them was for energy recovery, while the other would increase his power any time he wanted.
This Three-Eyed White Wolf was far stronger than his expectations… He couldn't look down on this wolf.
The Three-Eyed White Wolf looked at the other beasts, "You all can go away."
The reason he dispersed them all so that if he had to fight Azaroth after this, Azaroth shouldn't be able to kill any more of his beasts.
Azaroth snorted in response as he understood just what this White Wolf was doing but didn't stop it. It wasn't like he could even if he wanted to.
Slowly, the White Wolf and Azaroth entered the cave.
Meanwhile, Azaroth failed to sense it, but the Golden Ape's injuries were now slowly recovering. This was all because he was thrown near the location with a dense amount of Heavenly Energy.
The Golden Ape's body shrunk in size as it was back to its normal form now.
Meanwhile, the White Wolf stared at Azaroth and spoke, "Are you not worried that I might attack you here?"
"I am not naïve enough to entirely believe you. I have come prepared." Azaroth said with a confident tone.
Currently, Azaroth was revolving his energy using the Heavenly Demon Breathing Technique. Although the absorption speed was slower than when he was meditating, it was still good enough.
Moreover, now that he was in the cave, his Spiritual Sense could finally check this place. Not long after, he found out that there was indeed a beast in this cave.
Analyzing its quality of Ardor and its capacity, Azaroth was more or less sure that this was a 5 Star Rank Beast. However, it was entirely injured and was absorbing a large amount of Heavenly Energy to heal itself.
Soon enough, Azaroth reached the location where he saw the injured beast. His eyes slowly widened as he stared at the beast.
Ahead of him was a large body of an Abyssal Hound.
"No way…"
Azaroth muttered as he stared at this Abyssal Hound. The fact that this hound was here meant that it had come from Purgatory.
But how could that be possible? Only someone on the level of a Demon King could open a portal to the Frascoia continent. Moreover, even a Demon King can only open the portal in locations that contained massive quantities of Yin Ardor.
Right now, Azaroth couldn't sense the abnormal amount of Yin Ardor in this location, which would be required to open the portal from Purgatory to the Frascoia Continent.
'Don't tell me a Demon Emperor or a Demon God is involved in this?! I can't beat them at my current level.'
~~
It was the evening time in the encampment right now.
Sophie had just returned, quite tired after finishing only one-fourth of her task, but she decided to take a small break at this timing and return.
Her food was delivered to her cabin.
After she finished with her food, a guard entered her cabin. This was the same guard that had been ordered to investigate all that had happened in the past 2-3 days.
"Young Miss, we have more or less finished with our investigation." The guard spoke with a respectful voice.
"Alright, speak. What have you found out?" Sophie ordered them while looking at the guard with a curious gaze.
"Young Miss, the first thing we need to inform you that Edwin Rhodes, the young master of the Rhodes Family, had arrived in this encampment yesterday. He was brought by Sir Aiden and his group of students." The guard spoke with an entirely neutral voice.
"I did hear that someone joined their group from Liliana, but I never imagined it was Edwin. Alright, you can continue." Sophie ordered the guard.
"Young Miss… It's not just that. But he is also a 4 Star Warrior right now. He has already beaten Rudy from the Palm Valley School badly and used that battle to declare his power."
"What?! A 4 Star Warrior?!" Sophie was quite shocked when she heard those words.
She knew Edwin, and it has barely been a year since they graduated from the Acadia School of Martial Arts, and Edwin had already broken through from the 2 Star Rank to the 4th Star Rank?
That was far too unreal for Sophie. However, since she was in front of her guard, she tried her best to maintain her calm.
"As per young miss's order, we investigated the entire village, but there was no delivery from the Wrihull City or any other city in the past two days. No one has seen any delivery entering the encampment. Moreover, even the town lord hadn't gone anywhere outside the camp."
This sort of information surprised Sophie. She was now very curious about how the town lord got his hands on those Five Tier Elemental Crystals.
"Continue."
"As we were questioning a few guards, one of them mentioned that they had seen Edwin Rhodes go into the Herbal Garden. These were all the suspicious activities we could find out in this time, young miss." The guard finished his report with those words.
Sophie began to think deeply 'Something changed today that allowed the town lord to gain those Five Tier Elemental Crystals. The only significant thing that has changed in this camp is the presence of Edwin. Moreover, why would the town lord allow Edwin to go into the Herbal Garden when even I am not allowed to do that?'
A frown appeared on her head as she thought about Edwin 'Strangely, he didn't try to meet me at all. He should have talked to our other classmates and found out about me. Has he grown past that crush he had on me? Or is he trying to be distant to attract my attention?'
Sophie shook her head and thought 'No. That's not the point here. It doesn't matter what he is planning. It would be more important to know if he was the one who gave away those Elemental Crystals to the town lord or not. And how did he reach the 4 Star Rank so quickly? This mystery also needs to be unveiled.'
Sophie curiously asked her guard, "Haven't you tried talking to Edwin? What did he say?"
The guard lowered his head and replied, "I apologize, young miss, but we couldn't find Edwin Rhodes anywhere in this encampment. He has likely gone away from the encampment."
"Gone away? Didn't he come here to fight against the Beast Raid? What's the point of going away at this point?" Sophie couldn't understand this at all.
Even her guard was speechless and didn't know how he should answer this.
"Alright, you can go away. Inform me when you see Edwin again." Sophie finally dismissed her guard.
"Yes, young miss."
The guard took his leave.
~~
The Alchemy Division here in the encampment was also set up by the graduates from the Acadia School. However, they were a lot senior to Sophie, Edwin, and Myles's generation.
There was nearly a gap of two decades between their generations. For this reason, they never really did anything against the Palm Valley School's graduates because they felt it was beneath them to target them for those petty motives. At their age, they felt that there was little to no point in such fights.
Currently, Myles stayed in the Alchemy Division under the guise of learning some techniques from his seniors.
His seniors here knew that Myles wasn't that serious about learning alchemy, but they still taught him the basics.
It was late evening time, and Myles was frowning at this point. He just couldn't understand why Azaroth hadn't come to the Alchemy Division after getting the herbs from the Herbal Garden.
'Does he only need the raw herbs?'
This was not good news. Myles wouldn't be able to find Azaroth's secret like this.
However, he was unwilling to give up. He continued to think of some way to get to know Azaroth's secret.
Suddenly, he was struck by a fascinating idea.
"Yes… This might work!"